In this paper we shall focus on the different conceptions and domain assumptions about conciliation which wrestled with each other during the critical phase in Sri Lanka ’s legal history when a state-institutionalized conciliation scheme was being worked out.

In doing so we shall pay particular attention to ideas about the organization of the judicial system which may have influenced the principal author of the Conciliation Boards scheme, the foreign and domestic models of conflict resolution consulted by the legislative draftsmen, the different rationalization offered by the protagonists of this scheme during the legislative debates, and the shifting legal ideologies and more specific legal policies pursued by the Ministry of Justice during the years which followed the enactment of this legislation.